"Hers." Chaz was pleased that the bait had been taken.

"No giggles here," the detective remarked, glancing at the open pages.

"I haven't read it," Chaz said, which was true. He had asked the clerk at the Barnes amp; Noble for something romantic but tragic.

"It's about a lady who gets misunderstood by just about everybody, including herself," the detective said. "Then she swallows arsenic."

Perfect, Chaz thought. "Look, Joey was happy last night," he said, not quite as insistently. "Why else would she dash out at three-thirty in the morning to go dancing on the deck?"

"In the moonlight."

"Correct."

"The captain said he ran into some rain."

"Yes, but that was earlier," Chaz said. "About eleven or so. By the time Joey went out, it was beautiful."

Before the Sun Duchess had departed Key West, Chaz had checked the weather radar on TV at a famous bar called Sloppy Joe's. He had known that the skies would be clear by 3:30 a.m., the fabricated time of his wife's disappearance.

"The moon was full last night," Chaz added, to give the false impression that he'd seen it himself.

"I believe that's right," the detective said.

He stood there as if he were expecting Chaz to say more.

So Chaz did. "I just remembered something else. There was a raccoon, a rabid raccoon, running loose on the ship."

"Yes."

"I'm serious. Ask the captain. We were held up for hours leaving Lauderdale last Sunday while they looked for it."

"Go on."

"Well, don't you see? What if Joey got attacked when she went out on the deck? What if that deranged little monster went chasing after her and she accidentally fell overboard or something?"

The detective said, "That's quite a theory."

"You ever seen an animal with rabies? They get totally whacked."

"I already know about the raccoon," said the detective. "They trapped it in the crew's laundry and removed it from the ship at San Juan, according to the captain's log."